The present disclosure relates to an image processing apparatus and method, and a program. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to an image processing apparatus and method, and a program that are capable of easily recognizing a gesture made by an image-captured person.
Examples of image processing apparatuses include a gesture recognition apparatus that recognizes gestures made by a person by performing image processing.
For example, a technology has been proposed in which a frame image is divided into a plurality of image blocks, a change between frames is calculated for each image block, and a gesture is identified (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-064199).
Furthermore, a technology has been proposed in which after a depth image is obtained by using time-of-flight and the depth distribution (histogram) of the entirety is calculated, a threshold value in the depth direction is determined, hand and arm portions, which are regions of interest (ROI), are labeled and cut out, and then the center point of the cutout is obtained and is set as the coordinates of the gesture (see YANG-Keun Ahn, Young-Choong Park, Kwang-Soon Choi, Woo-ChoolPark, Hae-Moon Seo, Kwang-Mo Jung, “3D Spatial Touch System Based on Time-of-flight Camera”, WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS, Issue 9, Volume 6, September 2009).